


Baby, It's Cold Outside

by im_an_octopus



Category: Jurassic Park, Jurassic Park (Movies) RPF, Jurassic Park - All Media Types, Jurassic World - Fandom, Jurassic World Trilogy (Movies)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas fic, F/M, Sort Of, and there was only one bed, how does the tagging work i'm new here pls send help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-19 23:16:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17011029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/im_an_octopus/pseuds/im_an_octopus
Summary: Stranded and alone at an airport on Christmas Eve, you somehow end up splitting a hotel room with a certain velociraptor trainer in the very same situation. And there was only one bed.





	Baby, It's Cold Outside

Owen stared blankly at his plane ticket, then up to the large screen listing departing and arrival times of various flights. The word “canceled” flickered in red across the board for every single one, including his connecting flight to California. Around him, people were fussing about. Most of them were on their phones, attempting to make hotel arrangements or contacting whoever would be expecting them at their destination. There were, naturally, a few crying children, as well. Three years ago their tantrums would have irritated him to no end, but working at a theme park desensitized him to the sound.

He folded his ticket and tucked it into his pocket, sighing as he mentally corrected himself. Worked. He worked at a theme park.

Owen looked up at the television beside the flight statuses. A man, bundled to the point that his face was hardly visible, was attempting to keep himself steady as he reported the weather. Beneath him was a caption scrolling repeatedly, warning people to stay indoors until the blizzard stopped and the temperatures rose to a safer level. It was an idiotic display of media, but at least it was a break from what had been flashing across the world for the past three days: The Indominus Incident.

The first twenty four hours were surreal. Thanks to social media, countless videos and photos had already surfaced, giving the press plenty of material to work with when they swarmed him. 

Claire had done a good job of keeping the reporters at bay. It was, after all, part of her previous job. She spent most of her time doing press conferences or dealing with investigative authorities, and when she wasn’t, she was prepping Owen and the two boys for what the future was going to hold. The media was going to be plastering their faces on every platform they could. There would be debates. Protests. Rumors. Pointed fingers as everyone looked for someone to blame. Claire, who had been the most involved with damage control, took a large bit of it, merely because she was so exposed in the public eye, but she took it with poise and grace. All while wearing a pair of god damned heels.

Owen made a mental note to get her something more comfortable. A nice pair of flip flops that he knew she’d probably never wear, but would at least force a smile to her face. Perhaps he could even find some with a pattern that matched the board shorts he’d worn on their first, and only, date.

Or perhaps that’d send off the wrong signals. Owen was notorious for doing things like that. It was probably why the only female friendships he managed to maintain were with velociraptors. But still…it’d be pretty damn funny…

“Hey, isn’t that the dinosaur guy?”

Owen’s ears pricked up at the comment. It was muddled by other noises from the crowd, but close enough for him to take note. A quick look at the television said that he’d need to move along soon, if he didn’t want any encounters with nosy individuals. The man in the puffy coat was gone, replaced with a brunette in a pants-suit, reporting on a shaky amateur video captioned “prehistoric panic”. Owen had seen it before on a different channel. It featured him on one knee, firing a rifle into the air at the winged creatures overhead.

God he hated that fucking video. He hated all the videos and images and stories that had surfaced. He hated what they did. How they warped what happened. How they made him into an overnight celebrity. He was the hero of Jurassic World; or the villain, depending on who you asked, and it was terrible. He didn’t want any of that. He just wanted to be left alone so he could mourn, heal, and forget. He just wanted to be Owen.

“Yeah, I think that is the dinosaur guy.”

It was time to get moving. His flight was canceled and there was nothing he could do about that, so the next step was finding a place to stay for the night. On any other day, it would have been simple. The airport was surrounded with various hotels, most of them large. But that day, the canceled flights and stranded would-be travelers had everything maxed to capacity. After the third failed, somewhat desperate call, Owen had to accept that he’d be trapped in Chicago, alone on Christmas Eve.

***

Your plan had been simple. Go to work on the 23rd. Glare at your boss all day for not giving you your requested time off. Get dropped off at the airport on the 24th. Take off at noon. Join your family—who’d started their vacation without you—in sunny Florida by three or four. Have a fantastically warm Christmas, fighting crowds in Disney World.

Unfortunately, the weather in Chicago had other plans.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise. The only thing on the news, aside from coverage of the Indominus Incident, was warnings about the coming blizzard. You’d hoped that perhaps the weathermen would have been wrong, as they so often were, but apparently the one instance they got it right was at the most inconvenient time possible.

You were trying your best to be an adult about it and look on the bright side. You’d snagged one of the last remaining hotel rooms, which was something to be glad about. You had more than enough funds to get yourself a nice dinner via room service. Maybe you could even take a hot bath.

Or maybe you’d just end up being alone with your thoughts; wondering what your family was doing without you. The very prospect of the idea broke your heart, and soon enough, any hope of making the best out of a bad situation had gone out the window.

“God dammit,” you cursed as your eyes began to sting and you cast your gaze down to deflect any curious stares. You hated when people saw you cry. Especially strangers.

Then, in some hopelessly stereotypical moment from a bad movie, you crashed right into a firm chest covered in worn cotton and a leather jacket.

“Fuck. I’m sorry,” you huffed in dismay. The embarrassment of knocking into a stranger was simply the cherry on your shit-cake of a day. With a nervous breath, you looked up at the man, only for the color to drain from your face. No longer was he a stranger, but rather, a familiar face that you’d seen so much of these past few days. Owen Grady. You had collided with Owen Grady.

He furrowed his brow as he placed a hand on each of your arms to steady you. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” you nodded a bit too vigorously and tried to be inconspicuous about wiping your eyes. “Had something stuck in my eye and I guess I was paying more attention to getting it out than where I was going.”

Owen didn’t buy it. You didn’t blame him. It was a shitty lie, made even shittier by the fact that your voice was choked and raspy.

“Are you sure?”

For whatever reason, that was what broke you. Everything came pouring out right there in the middle of the O’Hare International Airport. There were onlookers, of course. They probably thought the two of you were a couple arguing, and based on the fact that you were crying while he mostly looked awkward, suggested that he was at fault.

Owen ushered you quickly off to the side and sat you down. He squatted eye level in front of you and pursed his lips together. Crying women made him very uncomfortable. He’d never successfully dealt with one, and he doubted that now would be his first time. But he wasn’t about to abandon someone so alone and distraught tonight of all nights.

He asked you your name, and introduced himself—not that he needed to—but out of courtesy, you decided it was best to pretend like you didn’t recognize him. He seemed to appreciate this and struck up a conversation. For the most part, he let you talk, and listened patiently. Any time you’d begin to get worked up again, he would calmly steer things in a different direction, and he did so until the puffiness of your eyes had gone away completely.

At one point your phone began to vibrate—a text from your friend apologizing for not getting back to you sooner, but they couldn’t pick you up, thanks to the snow. You rolled your eyes at the much overdue message as you went to lock your phone; but before you could, silence it, you noticed how late it’d gotten.

“Shit,” you groaned and stood up quickly. Owen looked up at you curiously.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. I just need to check into my hotel room. I don’t want them to give it away,” you ran a hand down your face. “I don’t mean to just up and leave. I’ve been really enjoying talking to you.”

“Maybe the conversation doesn’t have to stop.”

***

You’d made a lot of stupid choices in the past, but willingly inviting a strange man to share a hotel room with you had to take the cake. Granted, it didn’t seem stupid at the time. Ideas like this never did, but now that you were naked in the shower, the reality of Owen Grady being just a thin wall away was hitting you hard.

He seemed pretty harmless, for the most part. He never hovered too close or lingered too long. He gave you several chances to change your mind on the way to the room. He even carried your duffel bag for a good chunk of the way, all while making casual, innocent small-talk. But even still, you knew it was important for you to keep your guard up. Especially because even if he kept up his streak as a perfect gentleman, that rugged face of his could easily be your downfall.

When you finally felt clean, you turned off the water and began the process of drying off. You went back and forth on how “put-together” you wanted to look. If you were at home alone, you would have shuffled out of the bathroom with your hair dripping, wearing nothing but panties and an oversized shirt. With Owen there, pants became mandatory, and you decided to blow dry your hair, but nothing in the world was going to make you suffer through putting a bra back on.

“Son of a bitch,” you heard Owen exclaim angrily the second you opened the door. From the aged squeaks, it sounded like he was tugging on the pull out sofa. “Fucking thing is rusted closed.”

“Then you take the bed and I’ll take the couch,” you turned the corner and fought the urge to smile. There really wasn’t much else cuter than the image of a big, strong man, knocked from grace by a simple task. “I’m shorter so I’ll fit bett—oh wow.”

Your room was transformed. All the lights were off, save for a small, corner lamp that was rather dim to begin with. The curtains were drawn open to reveal the snow falling in thick, white flakes that almost seemed to glow in contrast to the blackness of the sky. On the nightstand was a miniature Christmas tree that you could have sworn you saw on a table in the lobby, and the TV was tuned to the Hallmark Channel’s annual burning Yule log.

“Alright,” Owen appeared in your field of vision before you could finish taking it all in. “So we got our fireplace going, a little Christmas music, a tree, and a feast,” he glanced at the bed, which you now noticed was covered in an array of vending machine snacks. “It’s not much. But I had to kick Santa out before he could finish doing his thing. See, he asked me if he could get a peek at you in the shower, and I, obviously, said no,” he joked and chuckled.

“Well I appreciate that,” you replied, feeling slightly overwhelmed. This was by far the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for you, and you were already beginning to feel terribly guilty for not having anything to give him in return. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“You didn’t have to let a stranger share your room.”

“I’ve seen the news, Owen. After everything you’ve been through, the last thing you deserve is to be alone on the floor of an airport on Christmas Eve.”

“So call it even? You gave me a room. I give you a Christmas. Though, I still think I’m getting the better end of the bargain.”

You looked around incredulously. “How? You went to all this trouble. All I did was give you a key.”

“I didn’t particularly want to be alone on Christmas Eve, either, you know. In the past I haven’t minded, but in the past I’ve also been living on a tropical island doing a job I love. So far, today has just reminded me that,” he cleared his throat and met your eyes, “today has just reminded me that it’s all gone. I’ve got some friends here and there, but for the most part, I cut the majority of my ties when I joined Jurassic World. That was my home and my life. Now it’s gone. But then earlier I found you all teary-eyed, which leads ups to now, and I’m feeling relief. Maybe even a little happy.”

“Owen…I wish I had something to give you in return. Or I at least wish I knew what to say.”

He leaned over to grab a bottled Coke from the pile of vending machine treats, and unscrewed the top. “Maybe ‘Merry Christmas’?”

You laughed. “I guess that’d be the most obvious choice. That or thank you.”

“Merry Christmas to you, too. And you’re welcome.”

“Can I kiss you?”

You could have sworn that the words were only in your mind, but apparently, they’d chosen to make themselves known to the whole world. Your cheeks were heated, and the embarrassment from your outburst was there, but there was no feeling of shock. This wasn’t a comment that had come from nowhere. He was handsome and charming and had just spent fifty bucks at a vending machine to give you a nice Christmas. If those weren’t the makings for a man you wanted to kiss, then you weren’t sure what were.

Owen’s lips were drawn up at the corners. His eyes had clouded and his body language stayed at ease. “I’m not doing this to get laid.”

“I’m not saying you are. I want to kiss you because I want to kiss you. Not because I feel like I owe you something. I mean…I do owe you for this…but like, a cup of coffee from Starbucks. Not a kiss. I don’t kiss people because I feel like I owe them.”

“Mm. Is that so?” Owen sipped his Coke without breaking eye contact before reaching out and drawing you closer to him by the small of your back. He was taller than you, and you had to crane your neck a bit to look straight up at him, but he didn’t make you do it for long as he dipped down to kiss you. He moved his lips a little to test your boundaries, but remained a gentleman, even when your tongue began to beckon him in for more. “Come on,” he whispered after a few moments. “If you keep doing that then I don’t know if we’ll get around to watching Christmas movies. And I have yet to see The Charlie Brown Christmas Special this year.”

The disappointment on your face was visible, but you managed to gather your composure a bit. In the end, you weren’t looking for a quick fuck, either, and you were somewhat glad that he was able to keep the two of you responsible. “Well we can’t miss that.”

“No,” he kissed you again, this time quickly, but it lingered. “But if we turn that on then we’ll have to turn our “fireplace” off. It’ll be cold. We’ll need body heat.”

After a few more kisses and playful back-and-forths, you both snuggled into bed together. Midnight had come and gone without either of you noticing, and so, you spent the wee hours of Christmas morning watching movies and munching on cheap food from the vending machine until you fell asleep.

Neither of you had ever been happier.


End file.
